Isn't the ultimate end of the road for Banner/Hulk becoming The Maestro and taking over the world?

Maestro was a future variation of the Merged Hulk(Gray + Savage + Banner personalities) that went crazy due to shrapnel in the brain and absorbing too much radiation consistantly over many years. He's a possible future.

One other possible version of an 'ultimate' Hulk was in the What If Planet Hulk story. Hulk and Banner seemingly merged perfectly, looked young and less bulky and seemed immortal, as they were still alive to see a race of beings evolve from an animal state to a technically advanced state.

__________________"Well, one thing I’ve been saying is that on the TV show they should make the Hulk a bit more intelligent."Stan Lee 1978 Interview

I've always been a little surprised they barely use the Leader as a major threat in the comics considering he's basically as smart as the Hulk is strong, therefore I'd assume he's smarter than both Reed & Doom making him very dangerous indeed.

People often make that claim, but the Leader has never done *anything* to back it up. He may well be smarter than the likes of Stark and Pym, but the absolute best feats of his entire career barely compare with typical ones from the Reed/Doom pair.

Or, there is a guy smart enough to literally bust into the Gates of Heaven to bring back the dead. His name is not 'Leader'.

In one of the earliest Stan Lee stories, he stated Banner was the smartest man on the planet, albeit Stan's Hulk stories weren't the most consistent.. In an issue of Hulk in the early to mid 1970's Doom pondered just how smart Banner really was. When Banner was in control of Hulk's form when Bill Mantlo was writing him, Banner created more new inventions than Edison in a shorter time. More recently in WWHs, Banner outsmarted Doom twice.

It has been suggested, but not made clear, that Banner transforms into the Savage Hulk to hold himself back all these years, all his other incarnations, including "Gray Hulk", "Gravage/Green Scar","Bruce" are potentially dangerous due to their level's of intelligence, power and knowing potentially what they can do. Banner allowing his Hulk-self to exist without his hindrance = Worldbreaker Hulk.

As someone said, Marvel's genius' are usually genius' in specific fields.

Again, they've *said* this, but outside of the atrocious writing of World War Hulk, Banner has *no* feats that compare with the best mad science done by Reed and Doom.

Or, call me back when Banner teleconferences with his alternate universe selves, builds machines that protect his temporal integrity, mind controls the entire planet repeatedly, brings back the dead by busting into Heaven, hijacks the power of cosmic entities, or uses his brain the manage the recreation of the entire universe.

People often make that claim, but the Leader has never done *anything* to back it up. He may well be smarter than the likes of Stark and Pym, but the absolute best feats of his entire career barely compare with typical ones from the Reed/Doom pair.

Or, there is a guy smart enough to literally bust into the Gates of Heaven to bring back the dead. His name is not 'Leader'.

Leader has not been in as many issues as Reed and Doom, but he has built his own time machine and he has figured out how to bring the dead to life; something neither of the other two can do; along with manipulating and making life forms also super powered beings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by metaphysician

Again, they've *said* this, but outside of the atrocious writing of World War Hulk, Banner has *no* feats that compare with the best mad science done by Reed and Doom.

Please stop with the 'atrocious writing' bit. Whether you liked the writing or not is irrelevant to the things Banner did before and in World War Hulks. You evidently have not read Stan Lee's earliest Hulk issues wherein Banner was making new inventions and many more mentioned all the time. I mentioned Bill Mantlo's run over 30 years ago where it was stated that Banner made more inventions than anyone else in the shortest time, due to him not having the Savage Hulk holding him back.

Banner is a nuclear physicists and excels in many other fields; Reed has even consulted with Bruce or referenced Banner's work in the nuclear fields.

Bruce has built many things...do the research.

__________________"Well, one thing I’ve been saying is that on the TV show they should make the Hulk a bit more intelligent."Stan Lee 1978 Interview

Truth be told, the smart ones are often the dumbest ones to boot. Common sense seems to not go hand in hand with intellect in this world. Some of the smartest guys in the Marvel world have made poor errors in judgment that even the stupid people have looked at like, "are they for real?"

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If the person you're seeing ever asks the question "Who is Stan Lee?", promptly kick their ass to the curb.
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Who the **** makes a movie and while planning it is like, "you know what this needs...is some Greg Kinnear."

I'm surprised no one mentioned Peter Parker, for making deals with the Devil, kinda.

I'm always surprised when people haven't read this -

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If you are on probation, you may not post under any account for the amount of days for which you are on probation. Violation of this probation will result in the permanent banning of your ORIGINAL account (permanent loss of entire post count, avatars, etc.,) and an extension of your probation to your NEW name. Continued violation of this rule may result in IP banning. If you are permanent banned, you may not return to Hype. Note: the Administrators and Moderators can tell if you hold more than one account.

If there was anytime that called for the gif of Hulk slamming Loki....

__________________
If the person you're seeing ever asks the question "Who is Stan Lee?", promptly kick their ass to the curb.
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Who the **** makes a movie and while planning it is like, "you know what this needs...is some Greg Kinnear."

People often make that claim, but the Leader has never done *anything* to back it up. He may well be smarter than the likes of Stark and Pym, but the absolute best feats of his entire career barely compare with typical ones from the Reed/Doom pair.

Or, there is a guy smart enough to literally bust into the Gates of Heaven to bring back the dead. His name is not 'Leader'.

Who broke into Heaven and brought back the dead? And who wrote that tripe? Sometimes I read about the crap that passes for writing in comics now and I'm glad that I no longer read most of it.

Apparently, you all missed the lengthy list of other feats Reed and Doom have done. There is vastly better support for the two of them doing crazy insane stuff with their brains than for Banner and his magic infinite precog ( that apparently judged Soul Man to be worthy of death ).

Please stop with the 'atrocious writing' bit. Whether you liked the writing or not is irrelevant to the things Banner did before and in World War Hulks.

Yeah the "atrocious writing" bit doesn't have much credibility when you are citing stuff like "teleconferences with his alternate universe selves, builds machines that protect his temporal integrity, mind controls the entire planet repeatedly, brings back the dead by busting into Heaven, hijacks the power of cosmic entities, or uses his brain the manage the recreation of the entire universe." Thats all some pretty stupid **** for someone to be doing after tinkering about in their laboratory for a couple of nights.

Banner hasn't had much of a rep as a braniac for a while but a large part of that has been because hes spent most of the last ten years of Marvel history walking around the desert in a pair of torn up pants. The past couple of years have seen him get some more consistent acknowledgement on that front and thats not a bad thing.

Reed Richards is to smarts kind of like what Hulk is to strength and i dont think its deniable that while guys like Stark and Banner can be close, if push comes to shove he will be Numero Uno. Thats fine. The Leader on the other hand is someone who i dont really see a problem with equalling or even surpassing Reed. I mean superintelligence is his actual power. Yes he doesn't quite have the feats of a guy like RR who goes into space and does wacky stuff every second issue but The Leader is always going to be held back by the fact that most of the time its his job to be foiled by a giant green idiot. Much like its Reed's job to never be able to figure out how to cure The Thing. I was actually pretty fond of how Millar hinted that Reed's stretchy powers actually gave him the ability to think in ways that were not humanly possible and i wish they would introduce something similar for 616 Richards.

I don't think Abom is the perfect Hulk villan, in any sense. He's too much like Hulk; so much so that just like the final battle in TIH, it had no heart and no emotion. It was just two big monster bashing each others brains out. Great eye cnady, but little depth. There are alot of much more intriguing villans in Hulks rough gallery that they could use. We all know the Leader. He's like Hulk's Lex Luther. Brains vs Brawn.

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"And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he's not appreciated, or respected, or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he's a man."
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